Jack Reacher is approached by a Secret Service agent who needs a favor. "I want to hire you to assassinate the Vice President of the United States," she asks. She is the newly appointed head of the VP's security detail and wants Reacher to try to penetrate her team's shield. He has the skills and the stealth and no one knows him. How else can she be sure her protection is truly effective?

Your Likes make Audible better!

Publisher's Summary

Jack Reacher is approached by a Secret Service agent who needs a favor. "I want to hire you to assassinate the Vice President of the United States," she asks. She is the newly appointed head of the VP's security detail and wants Reacher to try to penetrate her team's shield. He has the skills and the stealth and no one knows him. How else can she be sure her protection is truly effective?

What she doesn't tell Reacher - but what he soon discovers - is that a very real and deadly team of assassins has just put the VP in their sights and will stop at nothing to realize their objective. These men have planned well, but they haven't planned on Reacher. For only Reacher has the head and the heart to corner his prey and bring them to justice - without fail.

What the Critics Say

“The book is a joyride for listeners, full of false leads, dead ends, concussive bursts of action, and characters who are fully realized and individual. This is as much fun as an audiobook performance can be.” (AudioFile)

I'm listening to the books in order, so I don't know what's coming, only what's come before, but this is a better novel than the ones before it. Jack Reacher is a wandering hero with an absolutist, but not always convincing, sense of justice, who somehow always finds trouble. He's a fun hero without a lot of complexity, so you're unlikely to find yourself changed by this novel, or staying awake nights working out the ethical connundrums or processing the intellectual insights you've learned. Just a fun listen. It's more John Wayne than Martin Scorcesse, in other words.

This story gets more complicated and less dramatically unbelievable than his previous works, and Reacher, while still retaining his superhero status, loses some of the invincible omniscience of Child's earlier novels. That's not to say he is any less heroic or more ambiguous, just that the story itself is a little more believably written--once past the unlikely premise of an outsider becoming part of the Secret Service's inner sanctum, that is.

The plotting is better, the mystery more hidden and intriguing, and the characters a little harder to get a firm grip on, than in previous novels. In short, Child is becoming a better writer. He still relies on his detailed descriptions of weapons or plots or strategies to add credibility and stretch out suspense, and from the reviews it seems some people hate this. I think it adds to the story and gives it more weight.

Overall, a good book for thriller/adventure serial fiction. The writing itself is better than average without pretension, the storytelling is always engaging and suspenseful, and the emotional ride is satisfying. Not a bad place to dive into the series if you are new, either--it doesn't rely on past knowledge to make the story work.

The reader is okay. Terrible with female characters. Makes them whiny even when the story doesn't. He's good with the flow of the story, though. Good travel listening.

One of the nice things about Child's Reacher series is that they are not carbon copies of each other. Without Fail had a plot twist that none of the previous stories had. That's about all I can say about it without spoiling things. But the consistent thing about the Reacher novels and the thing that keeps me listening to them is the ultimate triumph of good over evil and Reacher's superhero exploits. Another satisfying listen.

Reacher didn’t beat up as many thugs as I would have liked, but I still enjoyed it.

STORY BRIEF:Someone is threatening Armstrong, the newly elected Vice President. Froelich is in charge of the Secret Service team protecting him. She used to date Reacher’s brother who told her about Reacher’s talents and abilities. She hires Reacher to test her security and then to help with the current threat. Reacher hires one of his army buddies to help.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:Another good suspenseful exciting escape with tough guys’ tough guy Reacher. I’m doing all of them in order and enjoying each one. However, this one did drag a bit in the middle. It took a long time (most of the book) to solve the mystery and find the bad guys. I think there were only two scenes where Reacher was beating up or shooting bad guys. Other Reacher books had more than that, so I was disappointed. Instead this book is mostly wondering who could be doing this and how are they going to catch them. But it’s better than no Reacher at all. The ending is good. We know Reacher will win because there are sequels.

I liked the way Reacher hung up on the bad guy when the bad guy wanted to talk to Reacher. The Secret Service boss was angry because he had asked Reacher to keep the bad guy on the phone for as long as possible, but Reacher didn’t. Reacher explained it’s a game. There were a few other chuckling moments as well.

Narrator: Dick Hill was very good.Series: This is book 6 in the Jack Reacher series.Genre: Mystery suspense thriller.Ending: Good.

I would rather listen to a Reacher novel than do most other things, and that is true of this book as well; but the novel is oddly lacking in action. The bad guys are not encountered in person until the very end, and Jack spends a lot of time discussing his feelings, which is not what I look to a Reacher novel for. I am glad I listened, and Reacher fans will not want to skip it, but it is not up there with the best ones.

I haven't been disappointed yet, listening to the Jack Reacher novels. He's truly an interesting character, and Dick Hill brings him to life. This is another suspenseful "who's the bad guy?' story, that keeps you guessing til the end. Don't want to give anything away, except, if you follow the series, don't miss out on this one. Only thing that really bugs me.....I really wish Reacher would do some laundry and quit throwing away good clothes.

This book is not my favorite of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels but still good. If you have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Child's action star Jack Reacher, I would not start with this one, but for those who already like the well written, ever engrossing Reacher series this is worth the time.

Lots and lots of talking, group meetings of strategy, motives, acting and reacting and it does on and on...to the point it became somewhat boring. the book was somewhat agreeable but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for future listening or reading.

Audible has opened up a whole new world of reading that I could not make work in the traditional page turning world. I am on a mission to listen to a wide variety of adventures, mysteries, thrillers, classics, etc. Thank you Audible!

I would say "Entertaining until the end," but unfortunately the ending was not there. I am a big fan of Lee Child and the narration of Dick Hill and during the first 7/8ths of the book I was really enjoying the listen. This book has less action and more ???who did it,??? but the plot has many twists and keeps you guessing/thinking. Sadly at the end it seemed that Mr. Child had a page limit or closing deadline and he just quickly, with little depth, touched on wrapping up several loose ends and then the story comes to a quick finish, which left me feeling unsatisfied. I actually listened to the end about 5 separate times as I kept thinking I must have missed some parts.

I would still recommend the listen to fans of Lee Child, but if have not read several books in the series I would strongly recommend reading a few of the other stories first before this one.

Your report has been received. It will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action.

Can't wait to hear more from this listener?

You can now follow your favorite reviewers on Audible.

When you follow another listener, we'll highlight the books they review, and even email* you a copy of any new reviews they write. You can un-follow a listener at any time to stop receiving their updates.

* If you already opted out of emails from Audible you will still get review emails by the listeners you follow.